Phase two- the Balkans loop

After getting my dad in a cab to the airport, Alexi and I started the next leg of the big adventure- the Balkans Loop. Our plan was to head west into Montenegro, then go across Bosnia and then swing up through Croatia to Hungary, down to Serbia and finish up in Bulgaria. From there, Alexi will fly home and I will continue on my way.

Our first stop was Durmitor national park in Montenegro. We started off fine, having good luck finding a good taxi driver to take us over the border, finding a bus that (amazing!) took us right to the park, finding a cheap place to stay. The town was cute (although we had a hard time finding any good bread) and the park itself was pretty good too. With a big lake and lots of well marked hiking trails things were looking good. But then we entered the world of cartoons. Two to be specific. First, I want you to imagine Pigpen from the peanuts. You got that? Ok, now imagine that you are Pigpen and he little cloud of dust that follows you around everywhere was actually made up of flies and mosquitoes. So now you have a bit of the picture of the hike that Alexi and I embarked on. It was out of control. I sort of expect bugs in the forest, but not swarms. By the time we got up to the point where we couldn't go on (impassable ice field since we left our ice axes at home. . . ) the war had begun. This brings us to our second cartoon- the one where Mickey kills 7 (flies) in a single blow. I started my attack (on the mosquitoes mostly) and by the time I got down the mountain I had a body count of over 40.

From Durmitor, we headed into Bosnia-Herzegovina, starting with Sarajevo. For me, Sarajevo was very interesting for the fact that I think the was in Bosnia was probably the first war that I really remember clearly. The signs of the war are all over, and even though there has been an incredible amount of reconstruction work, they don't let you forget about the war. Besides that, I felt like Sarajevo was a very livable city. They have tasty food and a great market and a vibrant feeling city center.

We finished off the country with a trip down to Mostar. Where we saw the (new) old bridge (most as in Mostar). The old old bridge was built several hundred years ago and destroyed in the most recent war. A few years ago they decided to rebuild an exact replica of the bridge using the same techniques and materials as the old one (with a few modern safety precautions, like metal scaffolding). The new (old) bridge is incredible; you can't tell it was a different bridge. Which actually brought up some interesting things to think about. When things (especially large/beautiful/historic things) are destroyed should they be replaced with something new or should they destroyed thing restored? If it is restored to its original condition, then have we lost some of the history of whatever did the destroying- which might not be bad, I'm not sure. Anyway, the new (old) bridge was interesting and Mostar was nice.

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